Rave Mobile Safety releases Smart911 update that eases the creation of building profiles

Indeed, Rave Mobile Safety spoke with one fire marshal who acknowledged that his department was about two years behind on its inspection schedule, so it was only inspecting high-risk facilities, because it was not logistically practical to inspect all of them, Piett said.

“[The fire marshal told Rave,] ‘If I can crowdsource that information, review it and cherry pick where I need to do my inspections, that makes it far more scalable for me. Then I’ve got information on everybody, I know how long it’s been since they updated the information. I can see where the gaps are, and I can see risk points that I might not have known existed. I might not have known that this mom-and-pop body shop has 500 gallons of paint in the back room. Now, I can put that on a list that I can inspect and manage,’” Piett said.

“It’s kind of an unintended benefit of us collecting data for 911 that these other agencies have said, ‘Wow, we really need that, and we need that in way that we’re collecting it, and making it available for all of these landlords and citizens to provide it.’”

Smart911 Facility uses the location provided by wireless carriers to PSAPs—location information that has been the subject of considerable scrutiny from the FCC during the past year. If an exact location for the emergency caller is not known, Smart911 Facility provides a list of the possible buildings, based on the location information and confidence level provided to a PSAP, Piett said.

Once the location of an incident is determined, a dispatcher can share information quickly about the facility with a first responder, Piett said.

“All of that information—the floor plan, PDFs—is also available to the first responder,” he said. “We’ve got a mobile-app version. The same way they access data about Smart911 callers, they can access building data, as well. So, a dispatcher can say, ‘I’m pushing this over to your phone,’ or ‘Log in, because I’ve got floor plans on the school you’re in, and you can check them out on your phone.’”

Announced on May 5, Smart911 4.0 has been used by many existing Smart911 customers for weeks. The Smart911 Facility functionality is scheduled to be turned on for all Smart911 customers this week, Piett said.